


First and Last

by Capriciously_Terminal



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Angst, Eventually because I mean when is anything happy any more, First Kisses, Last Kisses, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 21:07:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6873250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capriciously_Terminal/pseuds/Capriciously_Terminal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first and last kisses Eric and Alan shared.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Time Eric Kisses Alan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time Eric kisses Alan it's small, almost tentative really.

First

The first time Eric kisses Alan it's small, almost tentative really. (Something so unlike the first time he's kissed anyone before.) It's as easy as breathing, closing the distance between them, almost like he’s stuck in a pull older than gravity. It’s before everything becomes so complicated, before he realizes that forever has an expiration date. It’s before everything gets so dark.

They’re leaving one of the few pubs Alan actually enjoys inhabiting, Eric having promised the younger reaper drinks after a day of nonstop reaps. Neither of them are drunk, they'd have needed to really be trying to get there, but the world seems lighter somehow. The streets have long since emptied, a calm silence settling around them. The stars shine above like the glow of thousands of souls, street lamps casting yellowed flickering lights over the snow. Eric hasn't felt this content in years, something warm and bright filling his chest. The snow starts slowly, swirling down around them like those erica petals from not so long ago. Alan stops under a lamp, reaching gloved fingers up to catch some of the falling ice. The delicate silver sits on his fingertips as more continues to catch in his hair, on his nose, his shoulders, his eyelashes, on his lips. It reflects yellow, almost gold, under the light.

Eric still doesn't know what brings him back a step, what draws his eyes to Alan's face and makes it feel like he's really seeing the other reaper for the first time. He certainly doesn't know what makes him take hold of the sides of Alan's face, pointedly ignore the other's confused look, and lean in to kiss him without so much as a word.

Alan stiffens at first, immobile as ice, and Eric starts to think that he's made a mistake. But as quickly as it happened Alan's melting into the kiss, reaching up to grip at Eric's hair and press himself even closer. The world fades away, and all Eric can focus on is Alan's lips on his own. The kiss is quiet, and can't last more than a few seconds. As it ends, Eric can't seem to find the motivation to move away.

It strikes Eric how right Alan feels in his arms, how warm. He's moved to wrap his arms around Alan's waist, Alan's hands have come down to rest on his shoulders.

"It's late." There's a happy chuckle in Alan's voice as he finally speaks, peering over the rims of his glasses with a smile painting his face. He makes no move to leave his current position.

"Aye." Eric says. 

"And we have an early reap tomorrow."

"That we do."

"And while that was..." Alan raises a hand from Eric's shoulder and gestures as his eyebrows knit together, seemingly unable to come up with an adequate description. "Lovely," he finally finishes as a flush settles over his cheeks. "We really shouldn't..." He trails off.

"Shouldn't? Yer sure?" Eric's grinning like he's been given the rest of the week off. "Because I was plannin' on doing it again." He leans down almost intoxicatingly close, and then the second time Eric kisses Alan happens and it's just as perfect as the first one. "And again." And then the third happens and Eric has to seriously consider the merits of just living in the snow and kissing Alan on this street forever.

In the end it's Alan, ever the work-minded, who pulls back. (Looking slightly dazed, Eric notes with a sense of pride.) And seriously mentions needing to return home. So when morning has just barely dusted the sky, after Eric's walked and dropped Alan off at his own flat, Eric can't help the feeling of content that settles in his chest as he enters his own place of residence. It's the feeling when all the cogs line up, when he checks off the last box on the last sheet of paperwork, everything's finally figured out in Eric's world. Everything’s lighter, with the pale grey of not night but almost morning peeking through his window, and Eric feels more relaxed than he ever has as he sinks into bed. He nods off wondering about the future, and what a forever with Alan is going to be like.

 


	2. The First Time Alan Kisses Eric

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time Alan kisses Eric the truth has dawned.

First

The first time Alan kisses Eric, really kisses him, the truth has dawned. Alan's known for days now, how couldn't he? The first time he feels the pain grip at his lungs, feels it stab at his very being, he's all alone. But he can't let Eric know, he can't let anyone know. He missed two days of work, shutting himself in his flat with the shades drawn and the door locked as he tried to make sense of the whole ordeal. He claimed illness, a headache really, but the somewhat lie made him feel sick. Attacks came few and far between, but each one kept reinforcing the fact that this wasn’t some sick dream. Every time the pain faded away he’d hope that maybe that was the last one, maybe it wouldn’t come back, but each time it did and he couldn’t stand it.

It’s his first day back, and he’s hardly spoken to anyone, shutting himself in his office with some of the paperwork he’s missed out on. Eric’s been on reaps all morning, thankfully, because Alan can’t bring himself to talk yet. At first glance it's some form of sick pride. He's already been seen as weak. He's small and womanly, and everyone knows it. The honors student from the academy who could easily fit in at General Affairs, they'd laughed when he'd entered the London Dispatch when he could easily be the one handing out scythes. And now...how pathetic could he get? An all powerful grim reaper brought to his knees by a single human soul. He went from immortal to dying as soon as he let that soul touch him, a blink of an eye. Less than that. For what? Some twisted desire to be human? To be more than a simple observer, for once? This connection that he'd wanted...it all seems so useless now. He can’t tell his colleagues, can’t tell _Eric_ about this. If it’s up to Alan, no one will know.

Except for William. William knows. He has to. Keeping anything from him when it would affect Alan’s reaps would have been nearly impossible. And while the elder reaper offered condolences with more emotion than he normally showed at the office, he's never dealt with this before. There is no office protocol for the slow demise of one of his most promising reapers, and Alan can never seek the kind of comfort from William that he wants. He knows what he wants, he's already been able to experience it.

It seems like so long ago, the first kiss in the snow, that left a warm buzzing in Alan's stomach long after Eric had left him at his flat. They hadn't replicated it often, occasional kisses in empty offices or after other trips to the pub. Eric isn't in a hurry, it seems. They should have forever, why rush? The bitterness of it makes Alan want to laugh, or cry. Maybe both. As soon as he'd found out, after he collapsed in his and Eric’s office and Grell found him, he'd felt as though it all lost meaning.

What good was loving Eric if he was going to die?

What good was any of it when he was going to die?

These are the questions that fling themselves through his mind when he essentially throws himself on Eric when the other walks into their shared office.

Eric doesn’t know what it means, doesn’t even question how different Alan is acting. Alan finds himself waiting, so on edge it has to show, for Eric stop kissing him. Any second now Eric will pull back, a look of hurt or betrayal or something as heartbreaking painting his face. Eric has to know. Someone has to have told Eric by now, or if they haven’t Eric can somehow smell the new death on him because _everything’s so different now_. Everything is too emotional, with too many other things lurking under the surface of each kiss for Eric to simply go along as he always tends to do.

But that's what Eric does, simply chuckling at Alan's sudden lack of restraint. He leaves their office proudly ruffled, with a promise to see Alan at lunch. He doesn’t even mention Alan’s missing work, something Alan feels both guilty and grateful for. Alan stays in the office, as ruffled if not more, but left only with a deep shame bubbling in his stomach. There is no pride, no warm feeling in his chest that he’s expected would come with his first time kissing Eric the way Eric has kissed so many others. There is no sense of claiming something as his own, only a sense that he’s encroaching in something he shouldn’t be his as his own clock winds down. In theory, he knows, it would be best to stop this whole thing. It will hurt so much less if he and Eric just stop being what they are right now. If they aren’t so close, so intertwined that the fallout for him will surely take them both out, then maybe this whole thing won’t end as badly as Alan sees it ending. At least then one of them will make it out.

But then the thorns come, brought about by any of it (the stress, the kissing, the weight of what he hasn't said that figuratively crushes his chest giving way to what really crushes his chest) and it's all he can do to not make a sound. There is no more fretting, no questioning what to do, only the feeling that his chest’s packed with needles. It burns to breathe, his chest bristling with the slightest of movements, but he can’t stop the breath that shudders through him. It takes all of him, strength and pride and whatever else seems to overpower his instinct to give in to it all, to sit in the dark with his tie off and his suit still rumpled and not make a sound other than ragged gasps for breath. He turns the tie over in his still gloved hands when the pain fades, the glittering skull a symbol of his academic success, and briefly considers chucking the thing at the wall.

In the end he simply slips it back on and gets up, eyes red with the tears he couldn't stop despite everything else he managed to keep quiet, and goes out to pick up what's left of his paper work. He's missed lunch, and there's still a huge stack of pristine forms in his arms when he gets back. But there's also an apple that wasn't there when he left, a habit of Eric’s when Alan misses lunch, and then Alan's putting a hand to his mouth and remembering Eric's kiss after settling the forms onto his desk. It’s a lone match in the darkness, the lingering thought of a kiss under a street lamp that flickers like flame. Everything’s so pitch black now, the future suddenly capped by an ending Alan doesn’t want, but that memory’s still there. Eric’s still here, though for how long Alan doesn’t know. But it’s that memory that helps Alan to sit down in his chair and take a bite of the apple instead of bursting into a fit of something that feels like rage or sorrow and sweeping all the forms to the floor.

And then he's uncapping a pen and starting the forms, incredibly aware that he’s still alive.


	3. The Last Time Alan Kisses Eric

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last time Alan kisses Eric they're too close to the end.

Last

The last time Alan kisses Eric, they’re both damned and they both know it. There is no way out of this, or at least no clear path Alan can see. They’re both drowning in the weight of what Eric’s done, what Alan’s found himself bound to, and at this point its easier for them both to just swim down. Maybe they’ll come up on another side, a brighter side, where this whole thing can just stop. At this point Alan’s just hoping for as little collateral damage as possible, hoping that they both can get away from the rest of the entire mess.

Which is why, in the most sensible part of his mind, he knows he and Eric shouldn’t stop running. He knows that the moment they stop moving someone will be right behind them. Whether its The Dispatch, Michaelis, or both, the moment he and Eric slow they’ll lose whatever chance they have. But there’s still that part of him, desperate and often too powerful to always be controlled by rational thought, that makes him stop. He’s still got Eric’s hand gripped tight, and his slowing turns the other reaper around.

“What is it? Are ye alright? Is it the thorns?” There’s dark ringing Eric’s eyes, something Alan’s not sure how he missed until now, that only highlights the manic fear in them as Eric locks eyes with him. That fear, it transforms Eric’s face. There are lines on his forehead that aren’t normally there despite all the all nighters he’s pulled, his eyes shine with something ominous under furrowed brows, as his mouth’s set in a hard line. Eric has to have been feeling like this for far too long for it to be this prominent on his face, and Alan’s only realizing it right now. Eric’s spent so long afraid, so long dedicated to this impossible task, that his face has been swallowed by the dark.

Alan doesn’t shake his head or manage a reply, there isn’t time for it. He simply surges forward to catch Eric’s lips with his own. This isn’t the same desperation he’d felt before, the inescapable foreboding that he’s been carrying for so long. Dread apparently comes in variety. There is no guilt pulling him down, that’s been relieved, and its left Alan feeling somehow lighter. The doom is still there, but Eric’s here with him now. Alan’s still dying, sure, but now there’s something left for him to do. He can stop Eric, he can be with Eric, forgive him, even if that there isn’t time to say all the things he’s ever wanted to say. So he has to say it the only way he can.

He wants this kiss to last forever, wants to keep Eric right here out of danger. Eric can’t kill anyone else while he’s here, and at the moment it's like no one can stop them from simply kissing here. If Alan could freeze time, he’d do it. But the whole thing is too tumultuous. They’re both aware that any moment they could get caught but there’s too much to say on both sides to pull back right away. There’s intent, anger, loss, and too many apologies. They haven’t got forever any more, they surely don’t even have five minutes, but neither is willing to stop. They’re still holding hands, hanging on as one would to a lifeline.

For the briefest of moments its silent, the ringing in his ears blocking the world out. There’s only lips on lips and hands on hands, only breath and the taste of each other. The world has blurred, wether from their lack of glasses or just the moment they’re lost in, and for the briefest of moments there’s the worst kind hope flickering in Alan’s chest amidst all the thorny undergrowth. The kind that’s too good to be true.

But then the world comes crashing back down on them in torrents, and any sound could signify the end. They have to pull back, and all Alan can see is the wounded look on Eric’s face before he turns back to the front. A command isn’t needed for them to start moving again, and then they’re back to running.

And then the thorns steal Alan’s breath, and he _can’t_ run anymore. And as the demon comes around the corner, before the fighting starts, Alan reflects on how that was probably his last chance to kiss Eric.


	4. The Last Time Eric Kisses Alan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The real last time Eric kisses Alan is the last time Alan kisses Eric. There isn’t any time after that.

Last

The real last time Eric kisses Alan is the last time Alan kisses Eric. There isn’t any time after that. There are only demons and blades and fighting with reckless abandon because what else can Eric do? He’s come so far this is his only option. Promise or no promise he can’t just let Alan die.

Then there’s the realization that it’s all for nothing, that none of it will work unless Alan accepts what Eric has to offer and Alan will never do it. In the end he’s always known this on some level, even before Alan found out about the whole thing. But he’s just one away, one more soul and he’s finished, surely it can work out because he’s worked so hard. He just needs one more. And Phantomhive’s standing right there.

But then everything goes wrong, as it’s tended to do so for the past several months. So wrong. Too wrong. There’s screaming and running and throwing himself and everything he has into one blow that can end everything here and now. It’s adrenaline screaming through his veins and forcing him to act because he has to do something. There’s even more screaming and running on Alan’s part as he throws himself in the way. And Eric doesn’t even have time to realize what’s happening before he goes through the slicing motion that has surely become instinct he’s practiced it enough. There’s flesh under the teeth of his blade, and it’s too late to stop anything as he cuts through Alan’s back. Before he sees what he’s done he’s overwhelmed with success, overwhelmed with relief. For one moment he’s done it, he’s succeeded. But then shock hits him like a blow to the stomach as he looks up to see Alan, not Phantomhive, standing in his way. Eric finds he can’t breathe anymore, the last dregs of adrenaline and relief plummeting into something far worse.

But there isn’t time for breathlessness, because Alan’s falling like he’s a lost the ability to work his knees. His eyes are wide, and he’s looking only at Eric as he rushes forward to catch him. Alan’s never been particularly heavy, but now he’s dead weight. He can’t support himself, and Eric can’t distinguish thought from thought anymore. He’s just experiencing what can only be the collapse of a star inside his chest.

“Alan?!” It’s all he can say. It’s all he can think. Anguish runs hot and heavy down his throat into his stomach as his mind races to comprehend what he’s just done.

“Alan!!” He’s yelling now because Alan’s been looking at him this whole time, eyes wide with what must be shock, but now the light’s leaving his eyes and his head is tilting back against Eric’s arm.

Eric watches Alan die, and feels what must be left of his soul splinter like glass that’s had a hammer thrown through it as Alan breathes his last breath.

“ALAN!!” And now he’s screaming, searching for any sign of life in Alan’s face because there has to be something there. This can’t be happening, he can’t have done this. But there isn’t any sign, and it’s all too apparent what Eric’s done. Alan’s record flows into the air, and Eric sees all of it, every moment in the office or the pub or in their flats. Watching Alan’s life play out in front on him Eric feels as if someone’s hacked out his heart with a scythe and left what was left of him prone and bloody on the street.

There’s Alan the student, Eric his mentor. There’s initial begrudging respect, and constant admiration. There’s determination and inspiration, Eric watches himself teach. A field of ericas and one moment that Eric remembers as the first time he ever considered kissing Alan. (It was the briefest flash, an instance crystalized in sunlight and purple petals, a thrum in both of their chests. It was a moment that marked an unnamed change.) He sees now that the same thought was running through Alan’s mind as well.

There they are as partners before all of it went to shit. (Long nights in the office, chatting and laughing over paperwork. Alan picking up some of Eric’s slack, Eric picking up some of Alan’s.) There’s more of a sense of equality now, albeit a bit begrudgingly on Alan’s part. And then there’s that kiss in the snow. Eric sees himself kiss Alan and it looks so much brighter. Despite all of it he feels something akin to happiness stir in his chest, There is no pain, no stolen weight in his heart (because that must be where all the souls go) that threatens to choke him, no thorns in Alan’s chest, no guilt on either of them. Alan isn’t dying, he’s perfectly happy. They both are.

But then that moment’s gone, and there’s the rest of it. Eric watches Alan reach out for soul after soul in desperation for understanding, watches him touch the soul. From then on there are cracks in the record, like its being hacked at with scissors. Whatever happens after that is framed by cracks, the closer they get to the end of the reel the more damaged it is. He relives the thorns (Eric sees every attack, and it feels as though his own chest’s being ripped into,) the pain (emotional and physical it’s so blatant in Alan’s records,) and the lies (on both of their parts as Eric misses so many nights and Alan claims that he’s fine so often when he isn’t.)

There are so many times Alan reaches out, so many times Eric missed a hand seeking comfort, and it’s sickening. He watches the case from Alan’s perspective, Eric’s betrayal so frequent that its almost a motif. The cracks get so much worse, and then there’s another moment under a streetlamp, glasses left on a handkerchief as they both run into the night.

The record winds down. Eric watches himself fight, the shadows he saw frequent in the reel. He still doesn’t know what they were, but Alan sees them and there’s such panic in the reel now. A sense of _stop, stop, please stop this!_ He watches Alan come to the same realization Eric did about where he’d get his final soul, he watches Alan throw himself into the way. Eric watches himself kill Alan, and realizes he’s crying. And then the record’s gone, dissipating and winding away with the final image of that crystallized moment in the ericas frozen on the film, before it disperses into the sky.

Eric’s left holding Alan’s body, screaming. Because everything’s gone so wrong, and its all his fault.

Alan’s dead, and nothing can bring him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment, please?


End file.
